It's time to change your content strategy from random to revenue generating. From a focus on getting followers, to a focus on getting clients. Followers don't generate revenue, clients and customers do. No business can survive without generating revenue, and more importantly, profit. The earlier you are in your online business journey, the more important this is.
Hi, I'm David Zimbicki, and you're about to learn how to grow from struggling solopreneur to successful virtual CEO of your own expert business. Your knowledge and skills can change lives and make the world a better place. Are you ready to hit the accelerator to scale your results and impact? Then it's time to build your expert business. So how do we create a content strategy focused on generating revenue? Here's how.
I've created a sample content strategy and content plan following the techniques in this episode. It's included at the bottom of the show notes post for you to refer to. First is thinking about the goals that your content strategy must support. The difference between a random content strategy and one that generates revenue is the alignment toward your business goals. At the highest level, all of your content should be focused on attracting, converting, and ascending customers.
First you want to attract an audience of your ideal customers. Content that shows you understand the problems your ideal customers are having, diagnose the mistakes they're making, and the things they're trying that don't work. Also, the industry norms that are outdated. Next, you want to convert your audience into leads.
As you attract your ideal customer by diagnosing their problems, you mention the elements of your program or signature system that are their prescription, the medicine that solves those problems. Then ask them if they want that medicine. If you go to your doctor and they diagnose high blood pressure and tell you you need this medicine, lisinopril, which will take your blood pressure down within a day, then ask if you want a prescription, most will say yes.
This is the initial conversion from being a lead to a customer. Next, you want to ascend your leads and customers to your highest level programs. Using that blood pressure example, taking a drug isn't really the answer. That's just a short term fix. The doctor would also likely recommend a health program of diet, exercise, and other steps to address the high blood pressure issue comprehensively. That's what your signature system or program is.
The end to end solution that helps your customers and clients reach their goals. The right mix of attract, convert, and ascend content aligned to your business goals and cadence is what should drive your content strategy. So I mentioned the word cadence there. And so what we want to do is understand your business cadence. Most online businesses tend to follow either the launch model, the evergreen model, or a hybrid of both.
The launch model is where you only open enrollment into your flagship program two to four times a year. And most of your content and marketing aligned to those big launch events. The evergreen model is where you allow enrollment into your programs continuously throughout the year. Then of course hybrid is a mix of the two, where some of your programs use the evergreen model, and some use the launch model. Your decision here is the biggest single factor for designing the right content strategy.
If you're just beginning, I recommend the evergreen model, since it gives you more opportunities to test your ideas, offers, and pricing. The launch model is risky because all your effort is focused on one big launch, and if a single thing doesn't work or isn't optimized, your launch can fail. Either way, you need to align your content plan with that business cadence.
If we look at that customer lifecycle of attract, convert, and ascend, the duration of that cycle is the main difference between the launch model and the evergreen model. If you launch twice a year, then you have a 6 month cycle time to attract new customers, convert them with entry level offers, and ascend them to your flagship program. You may have two months where you focus on attracting new audience, two months focused on converting them, and two months focused on the launch.
In this case, you may dedicate one or more content channels, like a Facebook group, to your existing customers, so that they aren't left out when you're in an attract and convert stage. In the evergreen model, the cycle time is shorter, so you'll need attract, convert, and ascend content running quarterly or even monthly. In the evergreen model, in a given month, the There may be two weeks focused on a track content, one week focused on Convert, and one focused on Ascend.
Because at any given time, there are people in all of those buckets. In the hybrid model, it's a mix of the two. In most cases, you overlay more launch oriented content during the periods running up to the launch events. Hopefully, you see the benefit of aligning to your goals and cadence, and how much most are leaving on the table by publishing random content not aligned to their marketing goals. The next step is tuning your content strategy based on the size and stage of your business.
The current size of your business should also shape your content plan. If you have a small audience, your strategy should focus more on attracting your ideal customers and then converting them to be customers of your entry level offers. If you have a large audience already, your strategy can focus more on converting your existing audience to customers and ascending existing customers to your higher level programs. It's all about shifting the mix of your content types.
based on what's most important to your business over the period you're planning for. Next, you want to actually create your content strategy. The template I'll include in the show notes is what we use to plan the initial high level content strategy. We drill down from the annual goal, to the quarterly goal, to the monthly goal, and then even weekly. That's the template. Then at the end of the show notes post, you'll have a link to a finished example with explanations.
The template is an example of an evergreen approach. If you look at each month, you'll see each follows the pattern of attract, convert, and ascend. That means in weeks one and two of the month, the focus is on attracting new audience. Then week three is focused on converting them to a lead or customer. Then in week four, the focus is to get them to join your evergreen or flagship program.
This helps you pick content types, topics, and calls to action that are aligned to each week's goal, ensuring that everything you create is always supporting your business goal. In the finished example at the end of the post, a quarterly approach is used so you can see what that looks like in comparison and the types of content used.
To summarize, we've covered goal setting, how to determine the best mix of attract, convert, and ascend, and how to structure annual, quarterly, monthly, and even weekly content goals. In the next episode, I'll cover what topics to explore in your content, and what content types align best to attract, convert, and ascend, and what calls to action to use. You'll then be able to quickly put together a content plan for an entire year that's focused on generating maximum revenue.
So here's how to take action now. First, determine your annual business goals and desired cadence, whether it's launch, evergreen, or hybrid. Second, consider your stage and size of business and whether your overall focus is attract, convert, and ascend. And remember, we're doing all three regardless. Start filling out your content plan template with quarterly, monthly, and weekly goals.
Watch for the next episode where we'll learn about topics, content types, and calls to action so that you can complete your content plan. Then check out the show notes again for a finished example of a revenue generating content plan and a detailed breakdown of my content strategy supporting a product launch. Hopefully the finished examples help you put the concepts together.
In the next episode, I'll go deeper on those content types and how to create ideas that align with the goals of providing high value content to your audience, but also moving them towards your business goals.